Moments Between Time
by SilentDaughter
Summary: A collection of one-shots that deal with events that happen in cannon and not. Set between Iron Man and Avengers: Endgame.


The first time she heard the song, she had been in the middle of straightening the couch cushions for what felt like the millionth time. Her daughters name had been on her lips when the opening chords had rang out and the call had died almost immediately. She had no clue who the singer was, but she could feel the music and the woman's voice begin to pull forth memories that she had spent the better part of the last year trying to lock away.

_I found myself dreaming_

_In silver and gold_

_Like a scene from a movie_

_That every broken heart knows_

Flashes of that goddamned red and gold suit that took him so far away from her—from them—so many times. She knew that he loved that suit and although she loved him, she didn't have to love the suit, but would always be grateful for keeping him alive when shit hit the fan. She remembers going down to his private workshop to make sure he was actually alive after a twelve hour tinkering binge where she found him working on a different suit. It wasn't as bulky and sharp-edged as the ones he has and still wears. Instead, this one was sleek and smooth and all rounded edges. This one was blue and silver.

He had had nightmares and tinkering binges after the whole fiasco in New York and had literally created his own army of suits, but the nightmares and binges after the whole thing with Killian was worse. Sure, there may not be an army anymore—his arsenal was now limited to his main suit and a backup—but the nightmares kept him up for days on end. So, a part of her wasn't surprised when he admitted that he had made a suit just for her. For when he couldn't be there to protect her.

The argument they had had lasted for a whole two and a half days and to be honest, she couldn't quite remember why she had been mad. If anything, she was scared...terrified, even. She knew he meant it in the event he was in God knew where fighting who knew what, but her mind went to the dark corner that she desperately tried to keep out of.

They talked and cried it out and then sequestered themselves to their bedroom for the next six hours and then slept the for the following ten.

The next morning, she gave in and let him help her get used to the gleaming suit. Getting in and out and walking around proved to be no challenge and flying took some getting used to, but once she was soaring next to him thousands of feet above the ground, she thought that this was the closest she could get to riding off into the sunset with the man she loved more than anything.

_We were walking on moonlight_

_And you pulled me close_

_Split second and you disappeared_

_And then I was all alone_

_I woke up in tears_

_With you by my side_

_A breath of relief_

_And I realized_

_No, we're not promised tomorrow_

After the disaster that was the Expo and they decided to give whatever had been growing between them a chance, he had gotten his act together and fully committed himself to her and to them. No longer did he flirt with everyone that crossed his path and gone were the days where he would drink himself to sleep in his workshop. Instead, they would curl up together and flick through whatever was on television or he'd pull her legs across his lap as she responded to work emails and tended to forms while he fiddled with Jarvis or talked shop with whoever else was in the Tower. They were fully committed to the other and had reached a point where they didn't need words or even a look to convey what they were thinking or feeling. When her nightmares started, he'd pull her back into him and lock his arms around her while he was still sleeping. It was probably an instinctual thing, but it always helped.

The last mission had gone wrong in all the ways a mission could go wrong. The intel had been shotty and there were things that hadn't been mentioned in the report. When the team was shot at with some new high-tech tracking rounds and rounds with explosives, she had damn near lost her mind. The team had come back worse for wear and they all spent hours down in medical getting treatment and while she fussed over everyone in her typical mother hen fashion, she had refused to let him out of her sight. His suit had taken the brunt of most of the bullets and explosions, but the bone, muscle, and tissue inside of it had also suffered. The end result was a fractured radius, a couple of bruised ribs, scratches, cuts, gashes, and an assortment of deep and surface level bruising.

She'd woken up in their bed later that night to him hauling her into his arms and whispering reassurances and sweet nothings into her hair. Where his nightmares were quiet and physical, they often sent him tossing himself over the edge of the bed and landing in a heap on the floor. After the first few times, she had the nightstand moved a few feet over so his head wouldn't catch on the corner. Her nightmares, on the other hand, were the exact opposite of his. Her entire body would freeze and lock up tight while her voice echoed their room in screams and pleads and sobs.

Her nightmares carried on every night for a solid week before they began to taper off to an occasional thing. Still, every time she woke up he would be right there; whether she was nestled into his side or he had a leg tossed over one of hers. The one and only time she had truly freaked out had been when she jolted herself from the beginnings of a nightmare to an empty bed. With the remnants of her dream creeping back in, the line between that and reality began to blur and she flew from the bed and down the hall to the communal living room where she found him trying to mediate an argument between the captain and master assassin.

The force in which she had collided into him would have knocked him onto his ass had the good captain not caught her genius' arm and steadied the duo. His arms had locked a vice around her and let her cry and mumble out unintelligible words into the crook of his neck. Later on when they were back in the privacy of their rooms did she break own and tell him that she had dreamt that he had died while on the last mission and when she woke up, she thought that he really had. He just held her tighter and vowed that he would do everything in his power to come back to her. He also made sure to be next to her—or at least in the room—when she woke up after a night of bad dreams in the years that followed. If he was away on a mission, he had Jarvis patch him through when she woke so that even if he wasn't physically with her, he'd be there in the capacity that he could.

_So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

_And I'm gonna hold you like I'm saying goodbye_

_Wherever we're standing_

_I won't take you for granted_

_'Cause we'll never know when, when we'll run out of time_

_So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

_I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

_In the blink of an eye_

_Just a whisper of smoke_

_You could lose everything_

_The truth is you never know_

_So I'll kiss you longer baby_

_Any chance that I get_

_I'll make the most of the minutes_

_And love with no regrets_

After what had to have been his fifth near death experience, she dragged him away from the team and from the company and all the obligations they had and boarded an industry jet in New York and flew across the world to Italy. He had inherited some property on a couple acres of land in the countryside from his parents and that's where they stayed for the next week. Morning, noon, and night they reassured themselves and each other that they were okay and that they were going to be okay.

Safe to say that not much sightseeing had been done and neither had the laundry (you actually needed to wear clothing to have to wash them).

By this point, they had been together for nearly three years and when they had first started as a couple, she had asked that they keep affections for when they were at home without the eyes and ears of fans, reporters, and paparazzi watching their every move. Sure, they held hands, wound arms around each other, and stole the occasional chaste kiss, but once they went back to New York after their love fest of a week, they found that they didn't really care anymore. They became more possessive and protective of the other. His hands would often stray from it's usual place from the small of her back to the curve of her ass. Her hands would begin at his knee as they sat at a dinner or an interview, but would eventually end up far higher up on his leg that was probably decent.

After some harmless teasing from the team and a few days' worth of tabloid headlines, they dialed the handsiness back a bit but they still touched and kissed and grabbed whenever they could. She always claimed that he was worse than she was, but she was definitely responsible for her fair share of hurried excuses and quick departures in favor of their room (or an empty coat closet or their car if they couldn't wait).

Their love life had always been passionate and amazing, but there was nothing like the very real possibility of losing the man you love with every fiber of your being to stoke the fires of your passion.

_Let's take our time to say what we want_

_Here's what we got before it's all gone_

_'Cause no, we're not promised tomorrow_

_So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

_I'm gonna hold you like I'm saying goodbye_

_Wherever we're standing_

_I won't take you for granted_

_'Cause we'll never know when, when we'll run out of time_

The first and only time they had split had been neither of their faults. She hadn't been feeling well the last few days and had chalked the illness up to the bug that had been going around the office for the last week and convinced herself that she would be fine in a few days. For now, she would be able to work from home and get better so she could go back to being at the top of her game faster. It wasn't until she woke up in the early hours of the morning with warm sticky sheets did she realize that her flu had been more serious that she had originally back the blanket and sheets confirmed her suspicions and fears. Shaking him with his name leaving her panicked lips was effective in getting him up and once look at the crimson stained sheets around her hips and thighs had him out of bed and scooping her up faster and on their way to medical than what was probably possible.

In the end, she had to have a blood transfusion and a few liters of liquids during her overnight stay. Per the doctor on their private team, she had been about eight weeks pregnant. The life inside her had just begun to tell her that they were there before it wasn't. Her doctor had said that she hadn't done anything wrong, that sometimes these things just happen. She recommended waiting a couple of weeks before they could try again.

That's the part that got her.

They hadn't been trying in the first place. They hadn't even had a serious talk about trying, for crying out loud. She didn't hear what else the the doc had said before it was just the two of them in the room. He was quiet, too. His brow furrowed in that way it did when he was trying to figure out a complex problem he had with one of his inventions. Only this time, he was trying to wrap his mind around the fact that they had created a life together...literally. They had both silently wondered how it had happened. They knew how it happened in terms of biology, but she had been on birth control for years and had her IUD taken out and replaced every five years like clock work. Obviously all birth control is fallible and they were still always careful, but this time, one of his little swimmers had made it past her line of defense.

Once she got past the shock, she began to internalize the incident; picking apart all that she had done the past few weeks and finding points in time where she had pushed herself too far or too hard. The doctor had assured her that it wasn't her fault, that there was probably something wrong with the baby that ended up with it being nonviable. Still, she blamed herself and pushed him away. At first she could tell that he was hurting. It wouldn't be until a few months later and yet another crisis that was the genocidal robot that she relied he had been excited about the fact that she had been pregnant. Yeah, she miscarried, but now there was a part of him that wanted to see her midsection swell with life.

They got to the point where he spent his time between his workshop and who knows where for missions. She went to bed before him and most nights he slept in his lab—if he even slept at all. Deciding they both needed to get their shit together, they split. He stayed at the tower and she went to go stay with her parents. A month into their separation, that fucking robot tried to destroy a whole town and kill her genius. The moment he was back stateside with the team and two fresh faces, she practically jumped him and pulled him into their neglected room. Nothing...extracurricular happened, but they hashed everything out and settled on even ground.

No secrets or hesitations were kept, either. If something was on their mind, it was spoken and if it upset the other, that too was spoken about. Never again would they take advantage of the time they had together.

_So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

_I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

_I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

_I'm gonna hold you like I'm saying goodbye_

_Wherever we're standing_

_I won't take you for granted_

_'Cause we'll never know when, when we'll run out of time_

Three-point-something billion people disappeared and the world just about ended. Parents vanished from dinner tables and children from yards and cribs and wombs. Husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, and partners vanished from embraces and over the phone conversations. Brothers and sisters called one another, hoping to figure out what was happening to their own families and friends as they ran through the ashes of the people they loved.

They were the lucky ones.

The ones that weren't lucky died on operating tables or pinned in the wreckage of cars, buses, and taxis. Others fell tens of thousands off feet onto the waiting ground or water beneath them, helpless to do anything except scream and cry and pray. When the first day passed and stretched on to the second and third, the team trickled back, haunted and pained expressions on their faces.

The Captain, the Widow, the Science Bro, the Nordic God, the Platypus, and a literal Raccoon agonized their way into the communal living room and spread out on every available surface. The ones who wore them had their tactical suits and armor on; dirt and grime and blood caking the material and spreading to skin and hair and the fabric of the rug and the furniture. Most of her cobbled together family had survived, but there was one member who was glaringly absent.

Apparently, he had gone on a spaceship with a wizard and his Queens kid to stop a giant purple alien from destroying the galaxy. Obviously, everyone lost, but no one had been able to contact him. That meant that he was either:

Out of range

His suit had been damaged

FRIDAY was on the fritz again, or

He had died

She would have gladly taken any of the first three as reasons why he wasn't picking up her calls. She could handle him being out there on some planet with newfound allies, but she couldn't handle having his body rot hundreds on a planet of thousands or even millions of miles away. In either scenario, he should be home. The team jumped into trying to find where he could be. The raccoon was tech savvy enough to be able to triangulate where the suits tracker had last been picked up. The closest he could get was to the outer edges of their galaxy. Beyond that was unknown to the people of Earth, but since the animal wasn't, he knew his way around galaxy systems and promised her he'd do all he could to find her humie. The team got a hold of everyone they could to try to get a number and a ballpark of all the damage was done. They divided work and sectors of the state, country, and the continents to minimize any further collapse. She herself gave as much money and aid as she could to help them get to where they needed to go and to help those who they could.

Almost twenty six days later, he was found and brought home. The moment the beat up ship was grounded by the new Captain, she took off at a dead sprint. Her vision tunneled and all she saw was him. His skin was sickly pale and he was stick thin. His hair was matted and caked in grime. All of him was, really. Cap raced past her and helped a blue woman lead him down the ramp and while the two old friends had exchanged words, she didn't hear them. All that mattered to her in that moment was her genius.

The alien was killed and the world was still fucked, so, the two of them moved on. He had a nice little home built in a wooded area on a like hours away from the nearest city. She had brought up the issue of that as she handed him a pregnancy test with a little blue plus sign in the widow and he promised that he would take care of everything.

And he did.

Months later, she gave birth to their daughter in their home surrounded by the best doctors he could find. He paid them handsomely and gave them more money to pour into what remained of their hospitals and their organizations. From then on, life was peaceful. She began gardening and planting fruit trees while he tinkered on a much smaller scale. They took turns caring for their little miracle and welcoming the now all left alone Widow to lunches and family dinners and as the years went by and their daughter began to walk and talk, the duo became Mommy and Daddy and the Widow became Aunty. It was only when Widow arrived with the Captain and a newly found Tic-Tac did she feel that their peace was about to end.

She was right.

A week later, she was flying and battling back to back with him on the battlefield; silver and gold streaking the skies with powerful repulsor blasts. At some point, she lost sight of him as she trailed after his spider kid and the cursed gauntlet as they tried to get it to the van that was parked clear across the field in enemy territory. The next time she saw her red and gold man was after a blinding white light had forced her to close her eyes and Platypus had called her to his location. It was there that her feelings from all those nights ago as he offered to throw his discovery to the bottom of the lake came true.

Gently guiding the kid away, she knelt next to his burnt and bleeding body. His suit was mangled around him and blood seeped between the open gaps. She gently called his name and told him to look at her, his eyes still that warm brown she loved but were quickly growing dim. His name for her slipped past his broken lips in a broken voice that threatened to break her more than she already was. She told him that it was okay, that he could rest now and that she and their daughter would be okay. She wanted to be able to give him one last reassurance that they and everyone and everything else would be okay. He didn't have to go fighting across the world and be beaten down on any given day anymore. He could finally rest knowing that the culmination of his life's work had led them here and now and had been completed. Her hand came up to rest on his chest plate, the familiar bluish white glow peeking from between their fingers as he took his last breath and his reactor darkened.

It was only a few short moments later that the life behind his eyes faded away. It was hard...watching someone you loved die. She broke down then. Placing a tear filled kiss to his cheek before leaning forward to embrace him once more. Underneath the scent of dirt and mud, sweat and ash, blood and death, she could make out the scent that was uniquely him.

Now, now she had to go home and try to explain to her four year old daughter why her daddy wasn't coming home. The others had taken on a lot of the work for the funeral which left her time to talk and comfort their daughter and to play host to the crowd of people that staked a claim in their life. They were a few people short and it's then that she realized that everyone had lost someone.

They had spent every minute of the last five years with no more than a few hours of separation between them. They took advantage of their self imposed isolation out here to just be them and soak up every second they had with the other. They had always planned for the worst when he still took up the missions, and spent all the time they could together, but now, now they had run out of time.

_So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

_I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you_

Pepper was pulled from her memories with the small body that was her daughter climbed into her lap. At some point during the last few minutes, she had collapsed back into the couch. Morgan arranged her growing limbs around her mother and began to twirl a lock of more honey than scarlet hair around her little fingers.

"That's you and daddy's song." the statement was enough to pull the blonde from the rest of the recesses of her mind and she leaned back and pulled the welcome weight of her child into her body.

"Yeah, it is, isn't it." The song had echoed everything that she and her husband were and it felt like the song was specifically made and sung for them. Morgan nodded against Pepper's collar bone before pulling back and sliding to the floor. Grabbing her mother's hand, she yanked and lead the older woman through the house. Smiling at the ferocity of the small person in front of her, she couldn't help but ask:

"What's the rush, Madam Secretary? I didn't hear anything blow up in your room and we're not expecting anyone to come by today." The girl ignored her mother and headed in the direction of her parents' room where a familiar sound could be heard.

"Ah, I see he's awake. Have you been keeping an eye on him, Mor?" the girl nodded and pushed the door open while dropping her mother's hand and making a bee-line for the bed. It was past lunchtime, so she really shouldn't be surprised to find him already awake. Getting comfy against the headboard, the little brunette watched her mother do the same as she lifted the tiny bundle into her arms and unbuttoned her blouse. The trio sat in mostly silence, the only sound coming from the baby who suckled at his mother's breast and the coos of contentment.

Roughly seven months after Tony Stark died, Anthony Edward Stark Jr. had been born.

While Morgan might remember her father, AJ would know nothing of the man except what he heard from stories told by his family or from old footage that FRIDAY was able to recover.

For years, she and Tony loved each other on a level that was nearing desperate. Every day they had together was a miracle, but each day after wasn't guaranteed. Sure, they had their own problems like every couple did, but they made sure to talk it out so that they could just _be_. Even though her family had grown to include her son and the rest of the now known Barton Family, the loss of Tony, Natasha, and Vision was still felt and left a gaping hole in the hearts of everyone.

With time, their wounds would heal and the memories would hurt less, but for now, she was going to love each and every moment she had with her children.

Besides, it was only a matter of time before someone else needed a Rescue.

* * *

Song: "Like I'm Gonna Lose You" by Meghan Trainor ft. John Legend

This was cranked out in a few hours by me and posted right after it was completed so it's got no beta which makes all mistakes mine. Also, most of the characters will at least be mentioned in various chapters, but not all of them are going to get their own right off the bat and some chapters may even have a follow up chapter or two. Any and all suggestions are welcome for the future.

**A/N I tried to stick to canon as much as I could, but I couldn't help but throw some of my own stuff into here to make it fit with not only the lyrics, but because as the author, I can take a few liberties. **

**I've been struck with the writing bug again so I'll try to get another one up soon (I have one planned already that's centered around Natasha). **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything except a tiny portion of the plot and AJ. The rest belong to Marvel and the song to Meghan Trainor.**


End file.
